By Isa Best Omoregbeji
Twenty years down the line, since the Maputo Protocol was adopted by African state parties in 2003 to safeguard the rights of women to what happens to their bodies, the protocol allows women full access to their reproductive rights and choice especially in instances of rape and incest.
Nigeria has long signed and Ratified the Maputo Protocol, yet a horde of evidence around Nigerian restrictive reproductive laws and the tightening noose in supposed developed societies threatens the rights of millions of women and girls- most of which are victims of rape and incest to control and make decisions that can shape their lives, families and future.
In a recent ruling in the US, a Texas Supreme court put on hold a lower court’s order allowing a woman whose foetus had a fatal diagnosis to perform an emergency termination. In Ibadan, a 14 year girl recently became pregnant as a result of incest and no legal option was available for safe termination under Nigerian Law.
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Although, the Violence Against Persons Prohibition Act (VAPP) passed since 2015, has provided some level of aid to victims of sexual assault and intimate partner violence by helping women get the needed contraceptives to prevent unwanted pregnancies, which is the leading cause of abortions. But the mere fact that these restrictive laws keep making it difficult for women generally to hold a sense of entitlement to their bodies, and hard for female victims of rape and incest to freely access safe abortion is increasingly putting a devastating impact on the implementation of the Maputo Protocol to safeguard the rights of women in Nigeria..
In a recent development in Abuja, Lawyers Alert in its latest attempt to deepen actions to protect the rights of vulnerable groups including women, staged a Moot Court Trial on reproductive rights in readiness to submit a Strategic Impact Litigation (SIL) case to the ECOWAS court, to compel the Nigerian government to enhance access to reproductive justice for women in Nigeria.
The Moot Court Trial presided over by a Judge of the high court, is intended to prepare as well as test the readiness of the Strategic Impact Litigants to go the mile, to ensure that women enjoy their rights on reproductive health in Nigeria as enshrined in the Maputo protocol. The Moot Court deliberated on the case involving the Petitioner and the Federal Republic of Nigeria, acting as the Respondent, with observers from various media outlets and civil society groups in attendance, adding significance to the proceedings. The petitioner was represented by Lawyers Alert as lead counsel while the Defendant’s counsel was led by the Civil Litigation Department of the Federal Ministry of Justice.
Both Counsels in the Moot Trial presented compelling and robust arguments, citing local Nigerian and international instruments to support their positions on the facts and substance of the case. At the end of the proceedings, the presiding Judge reviewed the processes before him. While reserving his ruling, he acknowledged the soundness of the arguments put forward by the petitioner’s counsel. However, he advised litigants to enhance the details in reproductive cases by including dates of birth and possible police reports of rape cases. The Judge emphasised that such cases must be both believable and probable to succeed. Furthermore, He reiterated that going by the existent laws, it is only possible to protect a victim of rape or violent relationship or a woman generally to such an extent as provided by the VAPP law, the Penal Code and the constitution. The Judge admitted that without the domestication of the Maputo Protocol in Nigeria, safeguarding women’s reproductive rights will continue to remain a Strategic Impact Litigation challenge as the Nigerian state was silent in the VAPP Act around some aspects raised in the protocol. There are notable instances where states like Lagos push for safe reproductive rights practices. He further stated that recently, the Lagos Ministry of Health has begun disseminating the 2011 Criminal Code which allows for exercise of certain reproductive rights to protect the physical health and life of a woman and required that such services be provided within the full extent of the law. Opportunities also exist for Litigants to adopt the nationally approved clinical guidelines on reproductive health and rights for legal indications and the 2015 Violence Against Persons Prohibition (VAPP) Act to sure-up their cases to protect girls, women, and marginalized communities from abuse, and ensure comprehensive medical services for victims of rape and incest.
Finally, the lead counsel from Lawyers Alert reiterated that it is on the account of protecting women’s right to reproductive healthcare procedure that the Moot Court is organised, in collaboration with Afya Na Haki (Ahaki) to warm-up strategic litigants to continue to engage Nigerian courts as well as ready to engage the ECOWAS court to seek protection for Nigerian women’s right to reproductive autonomy and healthcare choices.